Save Swedish wolves, petition

Against all scientific research reports on the topic, including the Swedish government’s own investigation earlier this year, the Swedish Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning has proposed that the Swedish wolf population be reduced to 180 individuals, a decimation of the wolf population with about 40 per cent. A decimating license hunt might commence this winter.

In theory, Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute monarchy like, eg, Bahrain. In theory, ministers and then MPs decide, not royals. However, is practice always the same as theory?

This decision is in violation with the government’s own agenda to improve the genetic status of the wolf population, as well as with the Habitat Directive’s rules on favourable conservation status. WWF Sweden, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and the Swedish Carnivore Association all agree that a decimation of the population would “seriously endanger the population, in particular in a long-term perspective, due to higher vulnerability to diseases, poaching, traffic accidents, nativity variation and other random events”.

The decision was kept secret from the aforementioned organisations, as well as the Swedish Wolf Committee, until the public announcement was made by Swedish Environment Minister Lena Ek. We now want her to reconsider and heed the scientific reports on the future well-being of the Swedish (and by extension Scandinavian and Russian) wolf population.

Sign the petition to demand that Lena Ek act now, then forward this email to everyone. When we reach 50,000 signatures, Avaaz will deliver our call to her in Stockholm.

SIGN THIS PETITION

As concerned citizens, we call upon you to review and reconsider the decision to decimate the Swedish wolf population by 40 per cent. The proposal is not founded on sound scientific ground and The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency itself proposed a minimum of 380 wolves in Sweden as recently as the 19th October 2012. The govenment’s own investigation in April 2012 proposed an increase of the population to 450 individuals. We urge you to act now!

November 2012. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is requesting assistance with an investigation involving the suspected illegal take of a third radio-collared red wolf that was recently found dead. The wolf was found with a suspected gunshot wound on November 2, 2012, north of Creswell, N.C., near the Washington and Tyrrell county line: here.

8 December 2012. USA: Yellowstone National Park’s best-known wolf, beloved by many tourists and valued by scientists who tracked its movements, was shot and killed on Thursday outside the park’s boundaries, Wyoming wildlife officials reported: here.

10 thoughts on “Save Swedish wolves, petition”

Thanks so much for sharing this! I live in Sweden and had not heard of this petition yet! “Our” royals don’t tend to be as controversial as some in other countries, but there still are issues… for sure. Will sign!

Thank you so much, mmmarzipan! Sometimes, on the Internet, there are complex roads for information.

Once, on my blog, when it was still on Blogsome, I had a blog post on a trade union anti-war action in California. A reader in California then commented that he was happy to read about this activity (he subsequently went there when it happened); but that he was also a bit angry that he had to read that in a blog many thousand miles away from California, not from an information source closer to him :)